Locating Fantastika 2015

Category Archives: conference

“Fantastika”, coined by John Clute, is an umbrella term which incorporates the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, but can also include alternative histories, steampunk, young adult fiction, or any other imaginative space. The 3rd annual Fantastika conference will focus on productions of Fantastika globally, as well as considering themes of contact across nations and borders within Fantastika. It is our hope to draw together academics with an interest in Fantastika from an international audience to share and disseminate Fantastika-related research globally.

We welcome abstracts for 20 minute papers on fantastika as they occur in any medium and form. Some suggested topics are:

– the production and development of Fantastika in non-Western or non-English-speaking countries

I’d like to officially announce that we are extending the conference to two days. All 40 abstracts confirmed acceptance! We will be holding the conference on Tuesday, July 7th, and Wednesday, July 8th.

The official conference dinner will be held on Tuesday, July 7th, but we plan to have informal dinner and drinks on July 6th and 8th, for any of you who are planning to come into Lancaster early or leaving late and don’t fancy eating dinner alone (or for anyone who simply wants to grab a meal or drink with friends!). Details of these social events will be announced in June.

We are ending the conference with a round table with Ruth Heholt, Philippa Semper, Catherine Spooner, Brian Baker, and Eddie Robson. For those of you planning to leave immediately after the conference, the conference should end roughly before 5:30pm on Wednesday.

Please note that there is no registration fee. However, this means that we will not be providing lunch, but we will be scheduling substantial time for a lunch break, and will point you in the direction where you can get a meal on campus.

For those of you looking for accommodation, please note that the campus of Lancaster University is outside of town, about a 20-30 minute bus-ride from city centre. However, the evening meals will be taking place in city centre, so if you intend to stay in accommodation on campus, you will have to travel back from town if you wish to attend these events. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please be aware that if you decide to stay on campus, there may be fewer facilities open in the evening for meals as it is the summer break time, but there will still be one or two places open for those of you wishing to stay on campus. All of the evening meals in the city will take place approximately a 15 minute walk away from the train station, to accommodate anyone who will have to leave straight away or are arriving straight from the train. For more information on how to get to Lancaster University, please follow this link: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/contact-and-getting-here/maps-and-travel/ . For accommodation information, there are bed and breakfasts available on campus ( http://www.conferences.lancs.ac.uk/bedandbreakfast/ ) and Lancaster uni recommends these places as well: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/family/visiting-advice/stay/ , but I also suggest that the Travelodge in town might be inexpensive, especially for a weekday stay.

We hope to have the conference schedule out in the next few weeks. In the meantime, if you are aware of anyone who would like to attend the conference but are not presenting a paper, please have them register by emailing us.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Following the success of Visualising Fantastika in 2014, Lancaster University invites all academics with an interest in the field to participate in this interdisciplinary conference. “Fantastika”, coined by John Clute, is an umbrella term which incorporates the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, but can also include alternative histories, steampunk, young adult fiction, or any other imaginative space. The theme for 2015, “Locating Fantastika,” explores all areas of space, setting, and locations, either in the fictional world of fantastika or in fantastical networks with the real world.

We are pleased to announce Dr. Philippa Semper and Dr. Ruth Heholt as our keynote speakers. Dr. Semper (University of Birmingham) lectures in medieval English, with a special interest on the interaction between text and image in manuscript studies; she also teaches and publishes on fantasy literature. Her keynote will be examining the relation between the medieval world and modern fantasy. Dr. Heholt (Falmouth University) is a senior lecturer focusing on the supernatural. Her recent work has focussed on the concepts of regions and the Gothic and haunted landscapes. She is editor of a new e-journal, Revenant: Critical and Creative Studies of the Supernatural: http://www.revenantjournal.com.

We welcome abstracts for 20 minute papers on fantastical locations as they occur in any medium and form. Some suggested topics are:

– buildings, houses, or other location-specific constructs

– landscapes or geography

– world-building or setting

– regional, national, or cultural spaces

– urban vs rural communities

– maps or mapping

– eco or ecology-readings

Please submit a 300 word abstract to fantastikaconference@gmail.com along with a 50 word bionote by April 1st, 2015

It seems that everyone enjoyed the conference yesterday. I’m so glad! And I hope yesterday marked the first of many Fantastika conferences to come.

The success of the conference is due entirely to the great quality of papers and the enthusiasm of everyone who attended. The papers were all brilliant. Thank you to everyone who participated and pitched in to help. And thank you to our keynotes, Brian Baker and Bryan Talbot, for delivering two truly amazing keynote speeches.

It was a great day, and I hope to see you all next year.

For those of you interested, we are looking to produce a special edition of the Luminary journal. You can access it here: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/luminary/
Abstracts will be due July 31st, with 4000-7000 word articles due a few months later.

Just some final details before the conference:The event will be held in the FASS building on campus.

Please bear in mind that the papers should be 20 minutes each, and questions will be saved until the end. All of the rooms should have computers if you are presenting with a powerpoint.

The titles of the presentations from our keynotes are:by Brian Baker at 9:30am: “Iron Towers, Zeppelins and Brass Engines: the scientific romance and dreams of Empire”by Bryan Talbot at 1:15pm: “Grandville and the Anthropomorphic Tradition”

Both sound fascinating, and I hope you can all make it!

Regarding meals:– As this a free event, lunch will NOT be provided. But there will be places on campus where you can buy lunch during the break (Gregg’s, Subway, possibly some takeaway places, and a couple campus pubs that serve lunches should still be open during the summer holidays). If you are unfamiliar with the campus, please make sure to pick up a copy of the campus map during registration, as I will circle these points on the map.– You are all invited to join us at The White Cross pub in town the evening before the conference (Thursday) at 7pm. You can either get a meal there, or join us for drinks, whichever option you prefer.– There are still spaces open for the 1725 meal on the Friday of the conference, as we have booked the event room. Let us know if you would like to join. We ask that you bring cash to this meal, as we need to pay with a group bill. There are several cash machines located outside of the restaurant. Additionally, as the campus is located outside of Lancaster, we are taking the bus into town after the conference is over. Someone from the committee will lead you to the bus stop and guide you to the restaurant. Contact us if you require further details.– We will be heading to Merchant’s pub after dinner, which is located convenient to the train station.

Finally, our keynote speaker Bryan Talbot is presenting a private viewing of an exhibition in Chorley at 7pm on the day of the conference, to which you are all invited! The exhibition will be open until September, and we encourage all of you to visit.

If you have any final questions, please do not hesitate to email us. We are looking forward to seeing you all at the conference!

Can you please confirm your attendance by May 15th? We also intend to publish the abstracts and bionotes on the website, so if there are any changes, please let us know by this date.

If you are bringing a guest to the conference, or if you know anyone who would like to attend, they must register (name and affiliation) via email by May 15th. Our email address is fantastikaconference@gmail.com .

Please note that there is no registration fee for this conference. Accordingly, we will not be providing meals, but we will direct you to areas of campus where you can purchase lunch. We are closing the conference with a dinner at 1725 restaurant, followed by drinks at Merchant’s (close to the train station if anyone needs to leave early). Anyone who would like to attend the dinner at 1725 must let us know by May 15th so that we may book a table/room. 1725 is a tapas restaurant; the tapas are large portions, so we recommend no more than two main dishes. They serve dessert as well.

We are aiming for a 9am start and a 6pm finish to the conference (not including the dinner portion). If you are coming into Lancaster the night before, we are holding an informal dinner/drinks at the White Cross Pub on Thursday, July 3rd. We will give more information regarding meeting time closer to the event. But feel free to join us for either drinks or dinner or both. We hope to see you there!

Please note that Lancaster University is located outside of the city proper. If you are staying in town, you will have to take a bus or taxi in (approximately 30 minutes; double if travelling during rush hour). However, 1725, Merchant’s Pub, and White Cross Pub are all located in Lancaster city centre, so if you intend to stay in accommodation on campus, you will have to travel back from town after these events. We apologize for the inconvenience. For more information on how to get to Lancaster University, please follow this link: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/contact-and-getting-here/maps-and-travel/

We are very pleased to announce Bryan Talbot and Brian Baker as our keynote speakers. Bryan Talbot is most famously known for The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Alice in Sunderland. He will be delivering a talk on his graphic novel Grandville. Dr. Brian Baker is a Lecturer at Lancaster University. Among other research interests, he has published Masculinity in Fiction and Film, and has edited a collection of essays on screen adaptations of literature. We are delighted to invite both speakers to our conference.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.